Friend trouble - WWYD?

[PassTheTwiglets]

DD has a somewhat turbulent relationship with her best friend - he is very controlling and she is rather submissive. He often tells her that she isn't allowed to be his friend anymore, despite her not having done anything wrong (and I do know for sure that she hasn't done anything, it's not a case of me thinking my DD is an angel who can do no wrong :o) She gets very upset by it all and I find it very frustrating that she still wants to be friends with him when he treats her so badly. It usually all gets sorted out in the end, as kids' arguments do, but today DD came home saying that he has told her he isn't going to be her friend anymore and apparently he's told all her mutual friends that they aren't allowed to play with her. Normally I try to ignore his mindgames and advise DD to do likewise but this one is going too far - DD said that she had nobody to play with at playtime because her friends were all playing with this other boy and 'weren't allowed' to play with her.

I've just about had enough of this boy and his behaviour - do I bring it up with his mum (who I do know though am not close friends with) or the teacher? I am a bit scared of bringing it up with his mum and feel like it should be the teacher's job to sort it out but then this particular teacher' isn't very effective and probably won't do much (and don't teachers hate being pestered about playground politics anyway?) But on the other hand I don't want the boy's mum to think I'm going behind her back and sneaking about him to their teacher... argh, what should I do?

Yes - a quick word with the teacher would be appropriate, I think.

You're right - it's standard to say "you're not my friend anymore", but then banning the other kids from playing with her is a whole other thing - it's straying into bullying territory, by deliberately making her feel excluded. And it will wreck her confidence.

The other thing you can do is invite other children home to play as much as you can in the hope that she will make other, more secure friendships.

I was in a similar position, spoke to the teacher, and it was resolved to some extent - my ds eventually stopped playing with the child in question, who paired up with someone else. Neither of the this new pair play with anyone else, my ds is now very popular with the rest of the class, and has lots of close friends. The mother of the original friend now blanks me very obviously in the playground...

I found a really useful book for my DS called "Bullies Bigmouths and So-Called-Friends". It was fantastic for giving my DD coping strategies.

And, yes, do tell the teacher, because if this child knows your DD has told, he will know that she will tell again if he does anything else/worse. On the other hand, if the teacher knows, they can often handle it in a really diplomatic way.

Incidentally, in my DD's school, they have a "worry box" system where they can put a note into the box, and then the teacher can read it and help, if necessary.

Gosh, this sounds familiar! Have a similar problem with DD. Drives me bananas. Everyone deals with this kind of thing differently, but here's my advice for what it's worth.

I don't think it's worthwhile talking to the teacher (especially, if as you say, she's ineffective anyway). Nor do I think it's a good thing to speak to his mum. Basically, unless your daughter is being physically hurt, or a victim of systematic bullying then I really think it's between the kids. Stay out of playground politics.

But this is a great time to talk to your daughter about this, and about the need to stick up for yourself, and be more assertive. She needs to learn this anyway, and develop these social skills, otherwise every time there's a problem, she'll expect mummy to fix it. And she won't have confidence in her own strength of character and ability to swim through these turbulent social waters.

When talking to her, you might suggest some things to say. Practice with her saying "no" firmly but politely, and "no I don't want to do that right now, thanks". With the "I don't want to be your friend anymore" she might respond "well, that hurts my feelings" or "okay, I'll play with someone else, then". Give her some tools to deal with this herself.

Good advice from Hassled re: invite other children over/encourage other relationships.

BTW my daughter is finally distancing herself a bit from this boy. She actually said to him "I like you, but you're not the boss of me, you know". Hey, result!

My DDs best friend does this to her sometimes. I'm doing all the things as bowerbird suggests as I think it's up to them to sort out, but I just need to show her how to do that. And give her some ideas to help her out.

The teachers can't be watching every playground conversation.

You need to build up your daughter's self-confidence and self-esteem.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. We do invite other children round but she never gets asked back and the one other child she really gets on well with isn't allowed to go on playdates :( That book sounds very good, HandMade, I will have a look for that, thanks. Bowerbird, glad to hear that your DD managed to distance herself from her 'friend'. I'm going to ask for them to be separated into separate classes next year to see if that helps (they don't work well together anyway as they're always chatting). I have spoken to her a lot about the relationship - it drives me crazy to think that she is so submissive. I have explained over and over that just because somebody can be fun to play with doesn't mean they are a good friend and that she deserves to be treated better but she just refuses to budge. Anyway, thanks very much for all the advice!